


a little faith

by extasiswings



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Deleted Scene, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e16 The Red Scare, F/M, Gen, Introspection, Timeless Fanfic Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 04:59:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12149124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: faith-noun1.complete trust or confidence in someone or something.2.strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.[On Garcia Flynn and his struggles to hold onto faith, even, and sometimes especially, when that faith is in Lucy Preston]For the prompt: A character gains something they desire, but knows they will lose it again. This could be an object, a person, or something abstract.





	a little faith

Faith.

It’s a funny thing when you think about it. To believe in something without evidence, without anything hard and tangible and real—well, there’s a reason Flynn’s never faulted the skeptics of the world. There’s a reason he’s been one himself.

Faith is madness. Logically, rationally, everyone should be a skeptic.

* * *

When Flynn was a child, he would sit in church between his mother and father and stare at the crucifix hanging high over the altar. He would stand and sit and kneel and say his prayers and take communion and wonder, always wonder, if God really was watching. The thought used to terrify him.

Later, as a teenager and a young adult, he felt differently. He would go to confession just to argue with the priests about why terrible things happen to good people, about why, if God exists, he doesn’t prevent genocide or wars or abuse against even those who believe.

He never got a good answer.

When Flynn joined the NSA, he stopped going to church entirely after the first mission that left his hands bloody enough that he imagined the holy water at the door swirling crimson when he dipped his fingers a week later. That wasn’t about a loss of faith though—not really. After all, can you lose something you never truly had? No, that was about not wasting his own time. 

If you don’t believe to begin with, there’s no point in wasting time trying to be forgiven when you couldn’t possibly be. 

_Bless me, father, for I have sinned…_

It was Lorena who brought him back. Lorena, with her smile and her rosary beads and her unshakeable belief that everything happened for a reason. Lorena, who would only marry him in a church, and how could he say no to such an easy thing?

(If he did it more so he could worship _her_ than any god, well, she laughed and kissed him when he said it aloud, so she clearly didn’t mind a bit of sacrilege)

She wore her grandmother’s veil on their wedding day—a delicate mass of white lace that he was almost afraid to lift for fear of tearing it like tissue. But what he remembers most of that day is not the veil itself, but the sparkle of her eyes and the curve of her lips behind it as she took his hand before their vows. 

_”I, Garcia, take you, Lorena, to be my wife. I promise to be faithful to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love you and to honor you all the days of my life.”_

_”I, Lorena, take you, Garcia…”_

_What God has joined, let no one put asunder._

He remembered those words as well—they echoed in his head for weeks after. Even then though, even then, he still wasn’t sure how much he truly _believed_.

And then he held his daughter in his arms for the first time.

_”What should we name her?”_

_You were wearing flowers in your hair when we met…_

_”Iris?”_

_”...Garcia Flynn, you ridiculous man. ...Yes.”_

In that moment, he knew there had to be a God, if only because nothing so pure could have come from him otherwise. 

Iris was perfect. A perfect miracle. She was the evidence. And he went to church every week after her birth to thank God for giving him, giving them, such a gift.

And then he lost them. 

No.

_Lost_ isn’t the right word for such a thing. They were _taken_ from him. By Rittenhouse. By God. 

“Losing faith” is an interesting phrase. Some people might characterize it that way, what happened to Flynn in the wake of That Night. He wouldn’t be nearly so generous.

He didn’t “lose” faith. He clawed it out and threw it away after the night he spent shouting at the heavens, demanding answers until his throat was too raw to continue, only to hear nothing in reply but cold, echoing silence. He left it to rot in the graveyard behind the church where he married Lorena. He abandoned it the way God had abandoned him. It was intentional. It was deliberate. 

It left him hollow.

* * *

Flynn planned on revenge.

He didn’t plan on Lucy Preston.

To be fair, he doesn’t think anyone could have planned on a woman from the future showing up out of the blue and handing over a guidebook for vengeance. 

She finds him in a bar and takes him to a church. He considers running immediately, but she starts explaining herself before he has a chance, at which point it’s easier to just hear her out. Not that he isn’t still considering running after he does. 

“You realize this sounds insane, yes?” 

Lucy’s mouth curves up the way Lorena’s used to whenever she found him particularly amusing.

“Have a little faith, Garcia,” she says, sliding the weathered journal across the pew towards him.

“That’s never helped me before.”

She hums as she stands and Flynn barely refrains from flinching when she reaches out and squeezes his shoulder lightly.

“There’s a first time for everything,” she replies. “Try it.”

The stained glass seems to mock him when he settles in to read, the stone gaze of Christ weighing heavily on him.

_You asked for answers,_ it says. _Ask, and you shall receive._

He has no reason to believe in Lucy. He has no reason to believe in the journal she left him. He has no reason to believe in fate or God or any sort of higher power. 

And yet...it’s all he has left. He has no more leads, no other way of seeking out Rittenhouse. Just a journal that says he needs to steal a time machine and a woman who claims he might be able to bring his wife back from the dead.

It’s madness. 

_Have a little faith._

He starts making plans.

* * *

It’s not God he believes in, or at least that’s what Flynn tells himself. It’s Lucy. 

She gave him back a purpose. She gave him hope. She gave him...something to have faith in. 

Except, his grip on it is weak—this fragile spiderweb that is either his last chance or a vast hallucination.

(Sometimes he wonders if he’s losing his mind anyway, even if it is real. If he’s fallen too far into an abyss of dark and vengeance to ever crawl back out. It’s not something he cares to dwell on too much)

There’s also another snag. Lucy—present Lucy—doesn’t believe him. 

If it weren’t driving him up the wall, if he was less desperate, he might be able to appreciate the irony in their sudden role reversal. As it is, he’s at a loss.

_Have a little faith._

So he tries. And then he tries again. And again. Even though his grip on his own thread of belief grows more tenuous every day. 

_We need to talk._

_Rittenhouse isn’t a him. It’s a they._

_One day you’ll understand I’m a patriot._

_Lucy, one day you are going to help me._

She stops him.

In 1942. In 1972. In 1780. In 1893.

She stops him. And his faith begins to slip.

Flynn should have guessed she would stop that too.

* * *

“I prayed to God for answers and he led me here. To this.” 

He holds a shaky gun in one hand and a detonator in the other—his pulse is too fast, his blood rushing in his ears loud enough to drown out almost everything. 

But not her. It can’t drown out her.

“What if he led you to me?”

_Oh._

Part of him wants to swear. To toss a middle finger up at God, because honestly, if this has all been some sort of test, or something else to teach him a lesson, he’s as far as he could possibly be from in the mood. But Lucy is standing between him and a gun and looking at him with wide, earnest eyes, and he can’t help it—something in him cracks.

_Have a little faith._

Flynn gives in.

They’re back in the present by the time doubt begins creeping in once more. He can’t help it. It’s an itch between his shoulder blades that he can’t scratch.

“I’m trusting you, Lucy,” he says. “I’m trusting you with my family’s life. If it doesn’t work—” 

She cuts him off before he can make any sort of real threat—not, that he even knows how that sentence was going to end.

He’s so tired of making threats. He’s tired of all of it—the violence, the killing, the rage—and even if he had come up with something, it’s not as though Lucy would have believed it anyway. She knows him well enough by now to realize he’s never been able to actually hurt her.

“It will.”

“What makes you so sure?” It’s desperation that makes Flynn ask, his tongue running too fast for his mind to manage. Even to his own ears there’s a hint of panic in his tone that he wishes he could hide better.

“So maybe Ethan is your grandfather, but still you—you barely know him.”

_Please. Give me something to believe in._

Lucy glances over at Emma and Flynn wishes abruptly that they were alone, that she could speak freely instead of carefully choosing her words.

“I guess that’s why they call it faith,” she says when she looks back at him.

Their eyes catch and hold for a long moment then and he knows she sees too much. She’s always been able to see too much of him.

_Trust me_ , her eyes say. _You’ve trusted me for this long. Trust me just one more time._

There’s something else there, too. Something that terrifies him. But they don’t have time to talk about that, and what’s more, he’s not sure he would even be capable of doing so. He’s too raw, too broken. He can’t...well. They aren’t going to discuss it, so it doesn’t matter what he can or can’t do.

For the briefest instant, Flynn wonders if she’s going to touch him. He thinks she wants to—that look in her eyes and the half-aborted motion she makes in his direction before she switches paths and walks past him say that much.

He’s almost glad she doesn’t try. He’s not sure he could have kept standing.

_I guess that’s why they call it faith._

_I guess it is._

* * *

Hours later, Lucy hands him a flash drive and it’s...right. He’s done. He’s finished. She kept her word.

And then the world drops out from under him.

“I’m sorry!”

“Sorry? You’re _sorry_?” The hands on his arms are rough—grasping and squeezing and twisting hard enough that he won’t be inclined to try an escape.

Her voice is horrified and Flynn wants to believe she genuinely didn’t know, that this wasn’t her plan all along, but he’s used up far too much good faith lately and he doesn't have any more benefits of the doubt to give. 

_Have a little faith._

_No. Never again._


End file.
